Rebirth

The Tiananmen debacle resulted in a brief spell of conservatism, but within a few years, Deng Xiaoping choreographed the rebirth of reform and openness with his historic “southern tour.” With Deng’s assurance that “to get rich is glorious,” entrepreneurial energy exploded again, concentrated now in the coastal cities. The leadership, guided by economic czar Zhu Rongji, enacted a far-reaching structural transformation of the economic sphere, anchored in privatization of state-owned enterprises. Ironically, China’s lack of full reform—especially in the financial sector and monetary policy—protected the Chinese economy from the vicissitudes of hot money and capital flight that ravaged its neighbors during the East Asian financial crisis.

Deng Accepted That There Were Limits to His Expertise

Changing China's Market Framework

China's Opacity Protected it from Crisis

Entrepreneurship Was a Key to China's Boom

Jack Ma

Lead Founder, Alibaba Group

Jack Ma is the founder of Alibaba Group and has been the chairman and chief executive officer since its inception in 1999. Ma is a pioneer in the Chinese internet industry and in 1995 founded China Pages, widely believed to be China's first Internet-based company. From 1998 to 1999, Ma headed an information technology company established by the China International Electronic Commerce Center (CIECC), a department of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation (MOFTEC). Ma currently serves on the board of SOFTBANK Corp, a leading digital information company that is publicly traded on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. As a respected business leader, he was chosen by the World Economic Forum as a "Young Global Leader" in 2001, and selected by China Central Television (CCTV) and its viewers as one of the "Top 10 Business Leaders of the Year" in 2004. He was also named one of the "25 Most Powerful Businesspeople in Asia" by Fortune magazine in 2005, a "Businessperson of the Year" by BusinessWeek magazine in 2007, one of the 30 "World's Best CEOs" by Barron's in 2008, and one of the “TIME 100: The World’s Most Influential People” by TIME magazine in 2009. Ma is a member of APEC Business Advisory Council, which was established by the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, or APEC, in 1995 as the vehicle for formalizing private sector participation in APEC. Ma holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Hangzhou Teacher's Institute.

In 1992, when Deng Xiaoping spoke in Shenzhen. Move fast, develop the nation, and I was in the university that day. I was teaching at the university, because I promised my school president that I would stay there and teach for five years. A lot of people just changed jobs immediately when they signed on for the job, but I was assigned to teach at the university, and I promised my president, five years, I'm not going to change my job. In 1992, I was just in the third year. I was like, "Oh my god, if I did not promise, I would probably get another job." My pay at that time was 10 dollars a month, but people offered me 120 dollars a month. And I said, "No, a promise is a promise." But that was the period when I said, "When I finish my five year promise, I'm going to do some real business." So, the change, to me, is that people do not feel ashamed to be business people. People think doing business is good. And people think, you can be rich, you can help other people be rich. At the beginning of my business career, I just wanted to change myself. I think everything I told my students, on the face, I learned from books. And I want to be a business person for ten years and go back to teach, share the real experience with young people. That was my thinking.